By a funny coincidence, I've just been sent the following press release:
Emerald LEADS NEW JISC
RSS project to push Table of Contents into library catalogues
UK - 31 January 2006 - Emerald Group Publishing Ltd announces that it is leading a Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) project: 'Table of Contents by Really Simple Syndication' (TOCRoSS). The project team will develop an RSS news feed service that automatically pushes publisher and e-journal information into library catalogues. Started in October 2005, the project will run for 10 months, completing in July 2006.
Emerald, a leading publisher of journals in management, and library & information services, is leading the project. Emerald's head of web services, Paul Evans, is the project manager. Market-leading library systems and services supplier to the UK and Ireland academic and public library market, Talis, is the project's technology partner. Talis is working with Emerald to develop the publisher RSS and will develop the open source software environment to manage the service at educational establishments. The University of Derby, a pioneer in the use of open URL for linking to electronic journals, is working as the test bed and evaluation partner. JISC is backing the project with £15,000, and all partners have committed to match the funding, making a total of £60,000.
The open source software developed will be freely available to further and higher education establishments, publishers, and library management systems developers.
To drive TOCRoSS, an RSS server located at the publisher site will generate a 'feed' of information that can be automatically picked up by an RSS monitor located at the customer site. The project will also develop a plug-in module for the library management system to enable the catalogue and the OPAC to be updated with the information from the RSS stream.
The RSS 2.0 standard will be used as the technology base for the project, and TOCRoSS will include a proposal to extend the standard to encode metadata associated with e-journal publishing events, for example publication of a journal, issue or article.
With TOCRoSS in place, e-journal table of content data will be fed automatically into library catalogues without the need for cataloguing, classification or data entry. This will improve the accuracy of records, save time for library staff and deliver a more integrated OPAC experience to library users. It will be of particular value to academic libraries, where students often choose search engines such as Google over the library catalogue or myriad databases for tracking down articles and information.
[snip]
> -----Original Message-----
> From: An informal open list set up by the UK Serials Group
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Ian johnson
> Sent: 31 January 2006 15:25
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Charging for alerting
>
> But is there RSS software that doesn't have all those
> irritating little pop-ups coming onto your screen all the time?
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: An informal open list set up by the UK Serials Group
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Mark Brown
> Sent: 31 January 2006 13:56
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Charging for alerting
>
> One of the advantages of RSS - as I can see it - is that the
> readers allow you to bundle/manage all your feeds together in
> one place. Also they can contain links to other content like
> MP3's etc. It's also supported in the new beta version of IE7
> see eg
> http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2005/08/02/446280.aspx - so
> eventually you wont need a separate RSS reader - which will
> make life simpler.
>
> Some of the bigger content providers need to look at this
> technology - at the moment the only aggregator service who
> has done this that I'm aware of is Proquest.
>
>
> Mark Brown
> Electronic Services Librarian
> Library Services
> University of Central England
> 0121 331 5291
> Electronic Services:
> http://library.uce.ac.uk/frameEservices.htm
> Troubleshooting Form:
> http://library.uce.ac.uk/trouble.htm
> "If you don't make mistakes, you're not trying hard enough!"
> -Charlie Parker
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: An informal open list set up by the UK Serials Group
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Legg Rosemary
> Sent: 31 January 2006 13:34
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Charging for alerting
>
> Well, the answer here is, the library user tells me which
> titles he/she is interested in, I do all the setting up of
> the etocs, then we simply circulate them to the appropriate
> list by email. Where we have full online access, I make sure
> they have the necessary passwords to access.
>
> I still can't say I use RSS. Most of our users use the
> intranet only intermittently, but seem much more comfortable
> dealing with straightforward email.
>
> Keeping it simple seems to be the key, certainly as far as
> the users are concerned.
>
> Rosemary Legg
> Electronic Services Librarian
> Blackpool, Fylde & Wyre Health Library
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: An informal open list set up by the UK Serials Group
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of MacLeod, Roderick A
> Sent: 31 January 2006 11:31
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Charging for alerting
>
>
> What a great deal of effort seems to be expected from an
> average academics who might want to keep up to date with
> tables of contents.
>
> They need to:
>
> 1. Understand the concept of RSS, download a feed reader or
> register with a web-based reader, locate relevant feeds from
> places such as the helpful list at:
> http://www.liv.ac.uk/library/techserv/ejrnl/rss.html or
> notice the 'RSS' or 'XML' graphics on some sources, and then
> load these individually into their readers, periodically
> check individual feeds, etc etc. This is not an easy
> process. An average academic might be interested in numerous
> titles from numerous publishers, and the process requires
> quite a bit of effort.
>
> And/Or
>
> 2. Find email alerting TOC services, such as Zetoc or Injenta
> or Contents Direct or numerous others, register, select
> titles of interest from these various sources, and then wait
> for the barrage of individual emails. They have to remember
> different usernames and passwords, and in order to edit
> profiles may have to visit numerous sites. Sometimes the
> email alerts will contain links straight through to the
> content, and sometimes not. Even a nice service like Zetoc
> covers only a proportion of available titles.
>
> And many journals still don't have feeds or email TOCs.
>
> Surely there's an easier way?
>
>
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